Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" and Voltaire's "Candide"

Paper Summary:

This is a paper comparing Voltaire's "Candide" and Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein." The author looks at the failures in the ideology of the teachers in these two stories. The author examines how these failures are related to the ultimate failures in the educators' creations. This paper compares Dr. Frankenstein to the baron and tutor in "Candide," and explains how both stories are an allegory to the religious and political issues of the time. The author contends that the two works are similar in ultimate meaning, despite the obvious differences in style and subject matter.

From the Paper:

"Both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Voltaire's Candide show the failure of ideology--namely the inability of human beings to frame their lives according to a narrow doctrine, however superficially persuasive that doctrine might seem upon its surface. It does not matter if the doctrine is political, religious, or even scientific in nature--the use of satirical or science fiction underlines the importance of idiosyncrasies in human narrative, nature, and thought. In the case of Voltaire's Candide, of course, the doctrine that is 'deflated' is that all human beings live in the best of all possible worlds. In the case of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein the ideology the text desires to deflate is more subtly expressed. Shelley seeks to deflate the religious definitions of limits of humanity and the Enlightenment scientific impulse's belief that all human needs are rational."

More papers on Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" and Voltaire's "Candide":

• Book Review # 1844 : "Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein"
• Analytical Essay # 88155 : "Good and Evil in Frankenstein and Dracula"
• Analytical Essay # 54720 : "Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein"

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